I went to get my waxing done at a new place, conveniently located at the end of the street. The woman who did the waxing was a Sikh who had arrived from Indian Punjab four years ago. I felt a little hesitation, as I always do, when meeting those on the other of Partition. All those in Punjab are either those who were driven out or those who drove out. No one in my own family was involved, not in any of the sides, but when travelling through Pakistani Punjab one does see the ghosts of vanished people and temples and gurdwaras. The same on the other side, identical except that the mosques are absent. For Sikhs, especially, Punjab itself is sacred and many sacred sites (such as Nankana Sahib) are across the border. On the other hand they, more than the Hindus, are remembered for massacres in Pakistani Punjab.
I don’t know if people often have this slight hesitation I felt, maybe it’s a generational thing – mine is the last generation for which Partition was alive, lived by those around us even if it took place years before we were born. Now all the Parition generation is dead or dying, their children, my mother’s generation, are growing old, and we the grandchildren will be all who are left for whom the scars are not ancient history.